- Namespace editors and admins can now create leases.coordination.k8s.io and should use this type for leaderelection instead of configmaps. ([#111515](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/111515), [@deads2k](https://github.com/deads2k)) [SIG API Machinery and Auth]

`settings/v1alpha1`, and `scheduling/v1alpha1` APIs are disabled by default.

* The `system:node` role is no longer automatically granted to the `system:nodes` group in new clusters. The role gives broad read access to resources, including secrets and configmaps. Use the `Node` authorization mode to authorize the nodes in new clusters. To continue providing the `system:node` role to the members of the `system:nodes` group, create an installation-specific `ClusterRoleBinding` in the installation. ([#496...

- `--sync-frequency` will not affect the update interval of volumes that use `ConfigMaps`
  or `Secrets` when the `configMapAndSecretChangeDetectionStrategy` is set to `Cache`.

remained in alpha ever since due to performance and correctness issues inherent in its design. This PR exposes a second, independent pruning alpha powered by a new standard named `ApplySets`. An `ApplySet` is a server-side object (by default, a Secret; ConfigMaps are also allowed) that kubectl can use to accurately and efficiently track set membership across `apply` operations. The format used for `ApplySet` is set out in  [KEP 3659](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/3659) as a low-level...

## Known Issues

### LocalStorageCapacityIsolationFSQuotaMonitoring ConfigMap rendering failure
ConfigMap rendering [issue](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/112081) was found in the 1.25.0 release. When ConfigMaps get updated within the API, they do not get rendered to the resulting pod's filesystem by the Kubelet. The feature has been [reverted to alpha](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/112078) in the 1.25.1 release.

- Don't prematurely close reflectors in case of slow initialization in watch based manager to fix issues with inability to properly mount secrets/configmaps. ([#104604](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/104604), [@wojtek-t](https://github.com/wojtek-t))

- kubeadm: ensured that a variety of API server requests were retried during "init", "join", "upgrade", "reset" workflows. Prior to this change, some API server requests, such as creating or updating ConfigMaps, were "one-shot" - i.e., they could fail if the API server dropped connectivity for a very short period of time.
   ([#123271](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123271), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123))

- Fixes the `should receive events on concurrent watches in same order` conformance test to work properly on clusters that auto-create additional configmaps in namespaces. ([#101950](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/101950), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))